16jul2012

A quick fix to sinking bars: stiffen up your lats and control the descent

This is another quick command that can fix even unknown (in the sense that it’s not your athlete) lifter’s unconscious sinking of the bar on the chest at the bench press (resulting in three red lights).

I figured this out during my last meets when some lifters were missing lifts because of this. This is not that unusual in equipped events. The poor things were so upset and a little freaked out because they had little control of what they were doing, especially during a competition with all its stress.

So instead of insisting that they think about their chest (which was useless), I thought it would be better to have them focus on their lats. Real stiff lats and a controlled eccentric did the trick most of the time.